• When Trump was elected in November, who could have imagined that a few short
months later The New York Times would be running full-page ads in its first section in
the defense of truth? The lead ad on Feb. 26 said only “Truth. It’s more important now
than ever.” And who could have imagined that former President George W. Bush’s
defense of the free press in a democracy would strike such a chord across this
country? Yet another heartening note comes from a Feb 16-21 Quinnipiac University
survey of 1,323 voters. The question: Who do you trust more to tell you the truth about
important issues: President Trump or the news media? Trump, 37 percent; news media,
52 percent.
• “Don’t sit on the edge of your seat,” Mayor Lucy Vinis told the City Club of Eugene
about plans for a new City Hall, responding to a question Feb. 24 after her first seven
weeks in office. Vinis said the city and county are discussing a land swap and it will take
“some months” before we have a deal. The new mayor said “setting a reset button on
City Hall is a good thing.” We agree. After listening to her first “check-in” with the City
Club, we were impressed that Eugene has lucked out with our new mayor. As Lucy Vinis
put it, “Let’s get to work.”
• We wrote last month about artist Ruth Van Order (“Welcome to the Accidental Art
Hotel,” Feb. 9), who is one of approximately 20 artists living in a low-income housing
facility for seniors and people with disabilities in downtown Corvallis. Van Order works
tirelessly on an ever-expanding, constantly evolving map that depicts a colorful utopia
in which energy is clean, food is healthy and plentiful, schools are good and medicine
is free to those in need. She’s been building her own perfect world out of graph paper
and Scotch tape for more than a couple years now. It’s grown so vast over that time that
it takes at least two people to safely unfold it. Van Order says: “It will be done when I die.”
Van Order’s Technicolor dream map will be on display beginning March 3 at the Lincoln
Gallery in downtown Eugene.
• Eugeneans packed Harris Hall for the Feb. 27 City Council meeting to let city
leaders know exactly what they think of the recently proposed dog and smoking bans
in the downtown core. More than 100 people signed up to give testimony; the vast
majority spoke in opposition to the new prohibitions. Many criticized the dog ban in
particular, saying the city is using it to unfairly target the city’s homeless. Dog ban
opponents also argued that such a ban will be impossible for police to enforce.
Longtime downtown business owner Betty Snowden said that such a measure would
fail to solve the public health and safety problems these ordinances are supposedly
designed to address. Whiteaker residents expressed their continued frustration with a
council that seems all too content to brush downtown problems into nearby
neighborhoods. Proponents of the anti-dog and anti-smoking ordinances voiced similar
dissatisfaction with the council’s failure to address serious criminal behavior downtown.
The two sides disagreed about whether dog and smoking bans are appropriate
measures; practically everyone agreed that city officials have been kicking the can
down the road for far too long.
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DON’T LET THE SUN SET
ON YOUR SUMMER!
JUNE 26–
SEPTEMBER 15, 2017
UO SUMMER SESSION
Grab your glasses
and get ready.
Don’t let the summer
pass you by—work
smart and play hard!
uosummer.uoregon.edu
facebook.com/uosummer
541-346-3475
EO/AA/ADA institution committed to cultural diversity.
© 2017 University of Oregon
eugeneweekly.com • March 2, 2017
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